Billionaire Asness Fires Back at Trump Threats, Defends Haley
(Bloomberg) -- Wall Street billionaire Clifford Asness defended his fundraising for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley after Donald Trump vowed to bar any of her donors from the “MAGA camp.”
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“I contributed early and significantly to Nikki and thought I had done my job. But if past contributions don’t qualify me for being ‘barred’ from his RINO (yes they are the republicans in name only) cult I may have to contribute more now,” Asness said in a post on X Friday.
Asness, chief investment officer at AQR Capital Management, is among major donors co-hosting a fundraiser for Haley in New York on Jan. 30. The event, which will also be hosted by other Wall Street billionaires Stanley Druckenmiller, Ken Langone and Henry Kravis, is intended to provide a boost to Haley’s long-shot campaign ahead of the primary election in her home state of South Carolina next month, where Trump is currently polling in first place.
Read more: Wall Street Donors Plan Haley Fundraiser After New Hampshire
While Haley and Trump are the only two major candidates still in the Republican race, the former president remains the leading contender in national polls after placing first in both the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire’s primary election. But that hasn’t stopped donors from flocking to Haley. Stand for America Fund Inc., which backs Haley, raised $50.1 million in the last six months of 2023, outraising the Trump campaign’s super political action committee by about $5 million.
The two opponents have ramped up their attacks on each other in recent weeks. Trump’s original Truth Social post this week used a disparaging nickname for Haley, saying “anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”
In his post, Asness made a dig at Trump’s mounting legal woes, asking if he would take $83.3 million — the amount a New York jury said on Friday the former president must pay to former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her — to “bow out.”
AQR Capital Management and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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